The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,8
familiar conversation, one they had almost once a month. He was never quite sure if his mother was becoming senile and forgot that they had talked about it, or if she disapproved of Gil’s going to the newly built Santa María instead of driving the thirty miles every Sunday to their family church in Galisteo. The one his great-great-grandfather had helped build. Or at least paid to have built.
Someone across the squad room was yelling something, and Gil looked up. It was his chief, Bill Kline, saying, “Montoya, I need you in my office.”
“Mom, I’ve got to get off the phone.” He waited for her to say something. She didn’t. He said, “So, I’ll come over later tonight, okay?” She still didn’t say anything. It was a full thirty seconds before she said weakly, “Bye, hito. Have a nice day.” He heard her fumbling to put the receiver back into its cradle before the line went dead. She must not be wearing her glasses. She must have lost them again.
Gil headed to his chief’s office. Standing outside the door was Sergeant Ron Baca, pacing back and forth like a pit bull.
As Gil approached, he nodded at Baca, who stopped pacing and eyed him as he walked into the chief’s office. In a chair in the corner a woman sat huddled. It took Gil a moment to recognize her. Maxine Baca, Sergeant Ron Baca’s mother. Her blouse had a crusty, brown stain on the sleeve. Her head was bowed, and her fingers picked at the stain. She didn’t even look up as he came in.
Gil sat in the other chair. He was about to greet Mrs. Baca but thought better of it. He kept his eyes on her to see if she would look at him. She didn’t.
“Mrs. Baca has had some bad news. Melissa—you know Melissa, right?” Gil nodded; Melissa was Maxine’s youngest. Kline continued: “Melissa was found this morning up by Taos Gorge Bridge. It looks like she was thrown off.”
Mrs. Baca, suddenly realizing that the officers were looking at her, deliberately pulled her hands from the stain on her blouse and placed them folded on her lap. She tried to sit up straighter, but the effort seemed too great and she gave up.
Gil got up and crouched next to her, pushing his gun belt down as he did so. “Mrs. Baca, how are you doing? Do you need anything?” She shook her head violently. Gil looked at her for a moment longer before going back to his chair.
“The state police have already started their investigation, but Mrs. Baca has asked us to help her by checking into it ourselves,” Kline said. He motioned for Ron Baca, who was peering through the window of Kline’s office door, to come in.
“Mrs. Baca,” Kline said, “we’ll do everything we can.”
Ron Baca stood in the doorway, not quite entering the office. He looked at the floor, not meeting the chief’s gaze. His shoulders were tense, as if he were ready to fight, but when he finally raised his head, Gil saw that there was no fight in him. He didn’t have tears in his eyes, only emptiness—raw and painful.
“Ron, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Gil said. Ron only nodded curtly, as if words were beyond him.
Ron helped Mrs. Baca gently to her feet, their heads almost touching for a moment as son supported mother.
“Now Ron is going to take you home, Mrs. Baca,” Kline said.
The pair, with Maxine leaning heavily on her son’s shoulder and grasping his hand tightly, shuffled out of the office.
Gil closed the door behind them.
“Now, we have no jurisdiction in this case,” Kline started before Gil had a chance to ask. “The state police are handling it. But we’ll do what we can to help. This family doesn’t need any more tragedy. They’ve had enough.”
Gil knew the Bacas a little through the department. Maxine’s husband, a Santa Fe police officer for more than thirty years, had been killed during a drug shootout seven years earlier. Another son had died of a heroin overdose.
“Ron is one of us, for God’s sake,” Kline said. “If Melissa Baca was into drugs, or prostitution or whatever, I want us to be able to find out and tell the family before they have to hear it from the state police or the damn media. I want you to be a sort of liaison for the family—handle the press, talk to the state police for them.”